Risen 2 is brought to you by Piranha Bytes and published by Deep Silver of Dead Island fame. What you get here if your new to the series is a pirate themed RPG affair. You look to go up the ranks in a pirate crew, with them not knowing you are actually a undercover operative. Offering glorious back drops and the ability to use voodoo and much much more. Lets see how it fairs….

Pros:

The environment is a lush rich world boasting deep jungles, glorious sandy beaches, dungeons and temples can be found to loot their treasures

The game is huge and has loads for you to do from side missions like: hire a prostitute to “entertain” a guy as you loot his room, to full blown missions such as tracking down and fighting a rogue pirate group who enslaved the local tribe

Its a living breathing world, where everyone goes about their business

The addition of voodoo, monsters and other mystical creatures make this so much more than a cheap Pirates Of The Caribbean clone

Fast travel does exactly that with 0 loading times

Upgrading and teaching yourself new skills are near endless. You can learn to become a blacksmith if you like or become a bad ass thief, pick pocketing and lock picking to your evil hearts content. Learning voodoo opens up a whole new way of playing the game. The silver tongue perk allows you to get more out of conversations or learn things you wouldn’t normally hear

Your free to do mission in any order, Dont feel like doing missions? Fine go out hunting animals for supplies or even go out into the wilderness and pick flowers if you want. Or maybe go out looking for some artifacts in a temple? the possibilties are endless and all available to you from the start

Travelling from island to island is done by your big pirate boat, but a small journey is done via a row boat

Hidden treasure chests around for you to loot

A huge wide range of animals from monkeys to alligators to ghouls

Full voice acting and no character models looking the same, this helps to keep the great atmosphere created in this game world

The combat is very messy. Resorting to just mashing the attacking button while also trying to parry attacks. This gets really annoying on un even ground I can tell you

Camera angle, while you can move it yourself on the right stick, in combat this is clumsy and not easily done due to the camera not following you

The beginning is a bit slow but that’s kind of the norm with RPG games of today. Once you’ve done a few missions then it starts opening up

You start off with an AI character following you around, This is fine except when ever you run or go up a hill your not suppose to, The AI character disappears resulting in you having to go and look for them. Usually they are where you left them but sometimes they get stuck. Ive had a AI sink into the floor so im following a weird head guy, Or even a guy who goes to jump but gets stuck in the animation but continues to move. All very odd

No clear on screen visual guides. So if a mission asks you to speak to a certain person, this can prove rather difficult and a lot of checking everyone’s name. Not a huge deal but a niggling little flaw all the same

In summary it is a good game with so much game play. Its basically Skyrim with pirates, If you are a pirate fan or even if your not, this game brings fresh ideas and a new approach to the RPG genre. The visuals really are top notch and you will lose many a afternoon just gazing out into the ocean, or walking through a field picking up flowers and hunting. The game despite its few flaws is still a good game that deserves your time.

Jim Smale

I am a long term video game fan, Starting on a Atari 2600 and working my way through the golden Nintendo era. Now writing in my own unique style, I hope to provide gamers with a new way in which to read reviews.